“It is yours, sir!” we all cried out at once, “every heller!”

“No—­it isn’t mine.  Only four ducats are mine; the rest...!” He fell to dreaming, poor old soul, and caressing some of the coins in his hands, and forgot where he was, sitting there on his heels with his old gray head bare; it was pitiful to see.  “No,” he said, waking up, “it isn’t mine.  I can’t account for it.  I think some enemy... it must be a trap.”

Nikolaus said:  “Father Peter, with the exception of the astrologer you haven’t a real enemy in the village—­nor Marget, either.  And not even a half-enemy that’s rich enough to chance eleven hundred ducats to do you a mean turn.  I’ll ask you if that’s so or not?”

He couldn’t get around that argument, and it cheered him up.  “But it isn’t mine, you see—­it isn’t mine, in any case.”

He said it in a wistful way, like a person that wouldn’t be sorry, but glad, if anybody would contradict him.

“It is yours, Father Peter, and we are witness to it.  Aren’t we, boys?”

“Yes, we are—­and we’ll stand by it, too.”

“Bless your hearts, you do almost persuade me; you do, indeed.  If I had only a hundred-odd ducats of it!  The house is mortgaged for it, and we’ve no home for our heads if we don’t pay to-morrow.  And that four ducats is all we’ve got in the—­”

“It’s yours, every bit of it, and you’ve got to take it—­we are bail that it’s all right.  Aren’t we, Theodor?  Aren’t we, Seppi?”

We two said yes, and Nikolaus stuffed the money back into the shabby old wallet and made the owner take it.  So he said he would use two hundred of it, for his house was good enough security for that, and would put the rest at interest till the rightful owner came for it; and on our side we must sign a paper showing how he got the money—­a paper to show to the villagers as proof that he had not got out of his troubles dishonestly.

Chapter 4

It made immense talk next day, when Father Peter paid Solomon Isaacs in gold and left the rest of the money with him at interest.  Also, there was a pleasant change; many people called at the house to congratulate him, and a number of cool old friends became kind and friendly again; and, to top all, Marget was invited to a party.

And there was no mystery; Father Peter told the whole circumstance just as it happened, and said he could not account for it, only it was the plain hand of Providence, so far as he could see.

One or two shook their heads and said privately it looked more like the hand of Satan; and really that seemed a surprisingly good guess for ignorant people like that.  Some came slyly buzzing around and tried to coax us boys to come out and “tell the truth;” and promised they wouldn’t ever tell, but only wanted to know for their own satisfaction, because the whole thing was so curious.  They even wanted to buy the secret, and pay money for it; and if we could have invented something that would answer—­but we couldn’t; we hadn’t the ingenuity, so we had to let the chance go by, and it was a pity.